Black Friday returns on Friday 28 November 2025, with Cyber Monday on 1 December 2025. With the sale period next month, we take a look at how last year performed, taking a closer eye on the furnishings sector.
It’s that time of year again when sale savvy shoppers are surveying the retail landscape looking for the ultimate bargain. The Black Friday promotional period has turned into more of a month-long sale with many retailers opting for different strategies to make the most of the event. That said, for furniture businesses, it can be mixed whether to take part or let the sale pass by.
This article focuses on how Black Friday 2024 performed and why it should be a sale period those that are in the furniture space should be thinking about. According to Globaldata, Black Friday shopping in 2024 passed pre-pandemic levels, with 62% making a purchase. It also revealed that 40.7% of shoppers spent more than they did in the previous year.
Meanwhile, data from Adobe highlighted that UK shoppers spent £117.2 million through Buy Now Pay Later services on Black Friday, which accounted for 10.5% of total online spend for the day and up 15.6% compared with Black Friday 2023.
Adding further weight to the conversation is IMRG’s Black Friday tracker, which revealed that 63% of retailers extended their Black Friday campaigns this year. Nearly half (48%) started earlier in the calendar, while 39% ran campaigns later, with an average campaign length increase of +6 days. This trend underscores the growing perception of Black Friday as a month-long event— “Black November”—rather than a single day.
Black Friday and Furniture
Drilling down to the subject of home furnishings, according to IMRG’s report, home and garden retailers saw an increase of 4.1% compared to Black Friday last year, while Cyber Monday sales were down 2.5%. This was further backed up by figures from GfK’s point-of-sale data, which showed the homewares sector benefited from the pre-Christmas sales period, with sales up 9% in value and 17% in volume.
However, it’s the IMRG report that offered more insight for the furnishings sector. In terms of market segment, budget items through the period were up 3.3%, mid-market products rose 4.6%, while premium sales were down 15.2%. Garden furniture saw the biggest rise, up 8.8%, while furniture sales rose 5.1% overall – and also up 5.8% on Black Friday itself. Home improvement sales rose 2.9%, while homeware sales were up 7.6%.
Other highlights saw the average conversion rate online rise 2.5% during the period, although there was an average basket abandonment rate of 65%, Furthermore, the largest 10 home and garden retailers within its data saw six delivering growth in sales and four experiencing a decline.
How the data is collected
The first being data from IMRG’s Online Retail Index which is representative of 250+ retailers and represents £30bn+. The second stream of data is from IMRG’s Daily Black Friday Tracker which reveals daily performance for 145 retailers during Black Friday week (Mon-Cyber Mon) and tracked over £1.1bn in online sales. The final stream of data comes from analysing over 360 retail sites during November to see trends.
IMRG also detailed average engagement time, which is defined as the average amount of seconds customers spend on a retailers’ website before leaving. Overall, this decreased on Black Friday 2024 compared to 2023.
“In 2023 the engagement rate was 127.1 seconds, whereas in 2024 it was 116.1 seconds,” IMRG said. “What we can infer from this decline is that customers are quicker to leave websites to try and find better deals elsewhere, or that they have spent longer pre-planning their purchases, putting items in their wish lists or carts to secure Black Friday deals more promptly.
“Home page bounce rates have increased from Black Friday 2023 to 2024, from 18.7% to 24.3%. The increase in bounce rates could be due to things such as underwhelming deals, website performance issues, shifting consumer behaviour, misleading marketing, or cautious spending habits.
“The use of site search has remained the same, at around the 10% mark on Black Friday. Previous research has shown that customers who use site search are more likely to convert. It may be worth highlighting this feature on the website to grow customer usage. Retailers saw fewer sessions start on the home page on Black Friday 2024, at 12.6% compared to 14.2% in 2023. More sessions are starting on the product page; in 2024 36.9% of customers started their session on a product page.”
Black Friday 2025
With Black Friday 2024 seen as a success given that the online market grew +3.1% against IMRG’s predictions of -1%, November 2024 overall showed a modest +0.9% YoY revenue increase. Turning attention towards Black Friday 2025, retailers are encouraged to get involved, including those in the furnishings sector. What will your business do during Black Friday?
